English for Specific Purpose: Material Development

MATERIAL DEVELOPMENT IN ESP

Introduction

In language learning , material is anything which is used to help to teach language learners. materials can be found in the form of a textbook, a workbook, a cassette, a CD-Rom, a video, a photocopied handout, a newspaper, a paragraph written on a whiteboard: anything which presents or informs about the language being learned. (Tomlinson, 1998: xi).

Dudley-Evans, (1998:170 as cited in Nurpahmi) points out that the role of material in ESP are as follows:

1.         As a source of language

In some situation, where English is a foreign language not a second language, the ESP classroom may be almost the only source of language. Materials then play a crucia role in exposing learners to the language, which implies that the material need to present real language, as it is used, and the full range that learners require.

Where the classroom is the primary source of language, the material also need to maximize exposure to the language, for instance, by providing additional material : not everything needs to be studied in detail; interested learners will use for their own learning practice.

2.         As a learning support

As a learning support, material need to be reliable, that is, to work to be consistent and to have some recognizable pattern. There have been material published where each text is follow by ten comprehension questions. To enhance learning, materials must involvelearners in thinking about and using the language. The activities need to stimulate cognitive and mechanical process. The learners also need a sense of progression.

3.         For motivation and stimulation

To stimulate and motivate, material need to be challenging yet achievable; to offer new ideas and information whilstbeing grounded in learners experience and knowledge; to encourage fun and creativity. The exploitationneeds to match how the input would be used outside th elearning situation and take account to th learners reality need to be clear.

4.         For references

The materials will need to tak e account of differentlearning styles and allow for the explorer, who will follow through a train of thought; the browser; who will work through methodically. This implies that an important features is the overt organization of the material-through informative content pages and index. Content pages that provide a matrix of objectives, skills, language activity and topic are far more helpful.

Discussion

Hutchinson and Water (1987) state that there are three possible ways of turning your course design into actual teaching material:

1.         Select from existing material: material evaluation

2.         Write your own material: material development

3.         Modify existing material: material adaptation

In line with Hutchinson and Water opinion, Ana Bocanegra-Valle (2010:144-145) point out that at its most basic level the process of ESP materials development start from: first, evailable materials are reviewed, evaluated and selected acording to different criteria and with reference to a particular ESP course. Then, if there is a lack of materials, or if materials available are not suitable according to such evaluation, practitioners might be required to develop materials from abridge, extent and refine, rewrite- in short, adapt the the available materialsfo a particular learning situaition, ESP area, target group of learners, timing or set of resources.

Lastly, because the materials is ongoing process, those enganged in creating or adapting materials will to pilot test or perform evaluative reviews so as

to adjust materials over time in response to implementation outcomes, current trends in the field or research findings.

Evaluation is basically a matching process: matching needs to evailabke solutions(Hutchinson and Water: 1987:97). Therefore, material evaluation in ESP is a process to matching needs that is presenting syllabus to available materials.

Furthermore, Hutchinsona nd Water (1987:97) devide the evaluation process into four major steps: defining criteria by asking on what basis will you judge materials and which criteria will be more important?; conducting subjective analysis t know what realization of the criteria to know how the material being evaluated realize the criteria; the last step is matching to know how far the material match with the learner needs.

When adapting materials, the following criteria were taken into consideration: importance of information needed for our students’ future career, language adequacy of study material as well as application of already mastered communication skills in different contexts. ESP courses worldwide are very often oriented towards development of reading comprehension. Undoubtedly, such an orientation is appropriate if the students’ideas of their future careers have more or less clear contours expecting that they will get a job in some engineering branch. Many of our future graduates can hardly predict the sphere of their professional activities. This reality has to be taken into account when formulating the principal objective of the English language course at the Faculty – a proportional development of all language skills. In accordance with the current social trends, we should get rid of a rather one-sided view of an engineer as an expert in some scientific field using his English knowledge entirely for reading scientific literature. Engineering activities involve much broader repertoire.

Harmer, 2001 and Lamie suggest technique in adapting materials as follows:

1.             Add activities to those already suggested.

2.             Leave out activities that do not meet your learners’ needs.

3.             Replace or adapt activities or materials with: suplemetary materials from other commercial materials; authentic materials; teacher-created supplementary materials.

4.             Change the organizational structure of the activities, for example pairs, small groups or whole class.

Material development refers to anything which is done by writers, teachers or learners to provide sources of language input and exploit those sources in ways which maximize the likelihood of intake: in other words, the supplying of information about and/or experience of the language in ways designed to promote language learning (Tomlinson, 1998:2).

Howard (104-105) explains the guidelines in Designing Effective English Teaching Materials

1.         English language teaching materials should be contextualized

It is essential during the design stages that the objectives of the  curriculum, syllabus or scheme within the designer’s institution are kept to the fore. Also it should be contextualized to the experiences, realities and first languages of the learners. in addition, materials should be contextualized to topics and theme that provide meaningful, purposeful uses for the target language.

2.         Materials should be stimulate interaction and be generative in terms of language

Language learning will be maximally enhanced if materials designersare able to acknowledge the communication challenges inherent in an interactive teaching approach and address the different norms of interaction, such as preferred personal space, for example, directly within their teaching materials.

3.         English language teaching materials should encourage learners to develop learning skills and strategies

Hall (1995) stresses the importance of providing learners with the confidence to persist in their attempts to find solutions when they have initial difficulties in communicating. Strategies that can be used such as rewarding and using facial expressions and body language effectively can be fine-tuned with  well designed materials.

In addition, materials can provide evaluable opportunities oe self- evaluation by providing the necessary meta language and incorporating activities which encourage learners to assess th eir own learning and language development.this can utilize the learners’ first language as well as English. Some EFL course books, such as Ellis and Sinclair (1989), also build in exercises for students to explore their own learning styles and strategies.

a.         English language teaching materials should allow for a focus on form as well as function

The aim of guideline 3 is to develop active, independent language learners. to help meet this goal, materials also need to encourage learners to take an analytical approach to the language in front of and around them, and to form and test their own hypotheses about how language works (Nunan, 1988). Well design materials can help considerably with this by alerting learners to underlying forms and by providing opportunities for regulated practice in addition to independent and creative expression.

b.        English language teaching materials should offer opportunities for integrated language use

Ideally, materials can tend to focus on one particular skill in a somewhat unnatural manner. Some courses have a major focus on productive skills, and in these reading and listening become second-rate skill.

c.         English language teaching materials should be authentic

It is about the book’s author view that it is imperative for second language learners to be regularly exposed in the classroom to real, unscripted language to passages that have not been produced specifically for language learning purposes. Materials designers shoul also aim for authentic spoken and visual texts. Learners need to hear, see and read the way native speakers communicate with each other naturally.

d.      English language teaching materials should link to each other to develop a progression of skills, understandings and language items

It will help ensure that the resultant materials have coherence, and that they clearly progress specific learning goals while also giving opportunities for repetiotion and reinforcement of earlier learning.

e.         English language teaching materials should be attractive

Some aspects of criteria that are particularly pertinent to materials designers such as physical appearance that is initial impressions can be as important in the language classroom as they are in many other aspects of life; user-friendliness which materials should also be attractive in terms of their ‘usability’; durability that is if the materials need to be used more than once, or if they are to be used by many different students, consideration needs to be given to how they can be made robust to last the required distance; and ability to be reproduced: language teaching institutions are not renowned for giving their staff unlimited access to color copying facilities, yet many do-it-yourself materials designers continue to reproduce eye-catching multicolored originals, and suffer frustation and disappointment when what emerges from the photocopier is a class-set of grey blurs.

f.         English language teaching materials should be flexible

Choosing ESP materials determines the running of the course and underlines content of the lesson. Good materials should help teachers in organizing the course or what is more it can function as an introduction into the new learning techniques, and support teachers and learners in the process of learning.

Good materials should be based on various interesting texts and activities providing a wide range of skills. Selecting an appropriate material regarding the main criteria is an essential phase in organizing each course. It may happen that learners’ needs and expectations are not met due to wrong choice of material.

Concerning the ESP activities that is necessary to keep in mind the context that should be consitent with studying subject matter such as warming activities or pre-teaching, we can use various types of plays,

puzzles, collocation grids, questionnare, etc; receptive activities-work with a text itself, reading, listening; productive activities-practicing of acquired knowledge. Work in pairs, in grops or individual with help of teacher who take notice of using target language; follow-up activities, we can practice it in a form of creative homework, exercises.

Conclusion

Developing materials are needed to help students to understand easily and as the provided sources to practice English language skill particularly in enriching conversation abilities.

Material development is one of the most characteristic features of ESP in practice and a large amount of ESP theachers’ time may well be taken up in writing materials. The following are the steps in developing material (Hutchinson and Water, 1987:106)

1.         Defining objective

There are principle must be considered as guide in defining, objective:

-          Materials provide a stimulus to learning

-          Materials have to organize teaching-learning process

-          Materials embody a view of nature of language and learning

-          Materials reflect the nature of the learning task

-          Materials can have a very useful function in broadening the basis of teacher training by introducing teacher a new techniques

-          Materials provide models of correct and appropriate language use.

2.         Selecting the model of material design. The model consists of four elements: input, content focus, language focus and task.

a.                   Input: this may be the text, dialogue, video recording, diagram or any piece of communication data, depending on the needs that have been defined in analysis.

b.                  Content focus: language is not an end of itself; but a means of conveying information and feelings about something.

c.                   Language focus: it aims at enabling learners to use language, but it is unfair to give learners communicative tasks and activities for which they do not have enoughof the necessary language knowledge.

d.                 Task: the ultimate purpose of language learning is language use. Materials should be designed, therefore, to lead towards a communicative task in knowledge knowledge they have built up through the unit.

3.         Writing materials. The following are the steps in writing the material:

a.       Identification of need of material.

b.      Exploratoion of need

c.       Contextual realization of material

d.      Pedagogical realization of material

e.       Production of material

f.       Students use of material

g.      Evaluation of material

References

Hikmawati, Djuwairiah Ahmad. “Developing Greeting And Self-Introducing Materials Dealing With 2013 Curriculum Of The Seventh Grade In MTsN Balang-Balang".http://journal.uin- alauddin.ac.id/index.php/Eternal/article/view/4119/4454

Rimma Bielousova. “ Developing Materials for English for Specific Purposes Online Course within the Blended Learning Concept”. TEM Journal. http://www.temjournal.com/content/63/TemJournalAugust2017_637_642. pdf

Sitti Nurpahmi. (2014). English for specific purposes an integrated approach.

Makassar: Alauddin University Press.